Miranda Kerr may soon make her long-awaited crossover to Hollywood – the sexy Aussie Victoria’s Secret model is also being considered for the lead role in Transformers 3, Tinseltown tattle tales tell London’s Daily Telegraph.
With Megan Fox out of the picture as Shia LaBeouf’s sidekick in the action franchise, a host of names have bubbled up as possible replacements: including Gemma Arterton, Zoe Saldana, Vanessa Hudgens, Amber Heard, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Ashley Greene.
OMG! The Motorola Droid’s getting the Android 2.2 Froyo update "in the near future." Which makes sense, because we don’t have it at the moment, and we can’t get it in the past. So the future makes sense, right? As for the "near future?" Heh. We’ve heard that before, right? Here’s the actual quote from Moto:
“We’re excited to see Google’s news of the next version of the Android operating system and look forward to integrating it on our Android-based devices as it’s made available to the open source community.”
While I can’t comment on specifics, we do expect DROID by Motorola users will receive Android 2.2 as a software upgrade in the near future.”
Thanks, everybody, for blowing up our inbox over this. And not to be a Debby Downer (though technically its in our job description), but this doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Yes, it’s coming. No, we don’t know when. [via Slashgear]
Oil has recovered from its flash crash last week, but it has by now breached key psychological levels.
Moreover, lower prices could counter-intuitively beget increased supply as many OPEC members could now be forced to cheat on their production quotas even more so than before in order to support their national budgets:
According to OPEC’s leading official, now that oil prices have fallen to $68-70 per barell, the first line of defence will be a better compliance. But if OPEC members cheat on exporting volumes when prices are high, things are more difficult when prices falling under the psychological level of $70 per barrel as their revenues are also falling.
At the same time, another problem for OPEC members is that non-OPEC supply is rising in a fast way especially from Russia.
Lower prices could push higher production beyond quotas, which push down prices even further, etc. Could this create a self-reinforcing cycle for the next, say $10, of downward action for oil prices?
There’s probably a limit to this kind of behavior, but some OPEC members aren’t in the best of shape, such as Venezuela. Thus OPEC non-compliance could increase until it gets too obvious, via crashing oil prices, at which point OPEC members would be forced to come back into line with their cartel.
Join the conversation about this story »
That’s it, the deadline is up for applications to be a Local Events Campaign Coordinator in your town! We’ve had some amazing applications and can’t wait to get stuck into a season of gigs and festivals. Fancy getting involved? You’ll get training on the latest campaigns, free tickets to gigs, and we can guarantee* you’ll have fun. If you’re interested drop us a line at [email protected] – don’t forget to tell us which town you’re based in.
Some of you lucky activists have already lined up free tickets to Glastonbury by working for Oxfam this year (places still available for WOMAD – check out http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/stewarding/index.html). Oxfam has a long and proud history with the Glastonbury festival, and this year we will be sharing a special space with the other Glastonbury charity partners, Water Aid and Greenpeace. This will be a quiet zone where festival-goers can kick off their shoes and relax in the hay bales next to some calming water pools. These pools will contain little bottles with messages from supporters and staff saying what the charity means to them. We’ve got five spare bottles we’d like to fill with messages from our activists – yes that’s you!
What does Oxfam mean to you? What do Oxfam’s campaigns mean to you? What would the world be like without Oxfam’s campaigns over the years? How do you feel when you’re campaigning for Oxfam? Be eloquent, be inspired, be thought-provoking. You’ve 50 words to inspire a probably tired but very happy festival-goer (they’ll also have a chance to respond with their own message). Send your 50 words to me ([email protected]) by 4th June and we’ll let you know if you made it into the pool. And if you’re at Glastonbury remember to check out the oasis when you need some positive calm…
*If you don’t I’ll make sure you get a huge slice of cake to compensate
Which Fiat 500 badge do you want in the U.S.?
Fiat USA is really excited for the arrival of the Fiat 500 to the United States, and wants to get your opinion on what logo you prefer for the hatchback on the stateside.
The Fiat 500 will be available in North America with a 1.4L Multiair engine in the fourth quarter of 2010. It will be built in Mexico starting December 2010. Also promised for the North American market is a pure electric version of the Fiat 500 in 2012.
You can cast your vote on which badge you like the best over at Fiat USA’s Facebook Fan Page.
Personally, we’d like the original 500 logo.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Fiat USA Facebook Fan Page
A man with energy policy on his mind
The Gulf Oil Spill
BP plans to execute the excitingly-named “top-kill” maneuver, where heavy mud is pumped into the leaking oil well to cut off the flow, on Tuesday or Wednesday.
BP is trying to lower expectations for the gambit’s success. At some point we may have to accept that oil will leak into the Gulf for two more months, when the relief well is complete.
Meanwhile this weekend, President Obama named forrmer Sen. Bob Graham, of Florida, and former EPA Administrator William K. Reilly to a commission on how to prevent another spill. Will this commission be able to redeem offshore drilling?
Congress Choking off Venture Funding for Green Energy?
The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, a measure that venture capitalists say could choke off funding for green energy, is being considered by congress this week. The House is expected to vote on and pass the measure this Tuesday. It isn’t clear if it will pass the senate. The timing couldn’t be worse for green energy investors.
Whither the American Power Act?
If the midterm elections go as expected for the Democrats, The Kerry-Lieberman legislation will be the last, best hope America has to put a price on carbon, Grist’s David Roberts argues. So why isn’t it moving forward?
The only firm date has been set Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has organized a meeting of Democratic committee leaders for June 7 and a meeting of the entire caucus for a week later.
Still, Obama, or Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., could declare their support for the bill before then.
The Alfa MiTo has a new paint job – white with blue check stripes, belonging to Australia’s Sydney police force. While you might think that the Alfa MiTo has been chosen as part of a new acquisition of compact vehicles to fight crime, according to the police the purchase has actually been made because the new Alfa model attracts a lot of attention and is a talking point; meaning the police use it to connect with communities and build stronger relationships.
The police department says: “When it comes to visibility, the MiTo has proven to be an exceptional car, attracting attention and interest like no other car, with its primary role as providing a talking point from which we can discuss road safety.” Just a random excuse to buy new and interesting cars, maybe? Lucky them!
It’s not the first Alfa Romeo that has been used by Australian police who have also previously employed an Alfa Romeo GT Coupé. The Alfa models are part of an interesting lineup of cars that have been used in the past to attract attention to road safety campaigns, including the Holden HSV GTO, Lotus Exige and Chrysler 300C. But word is out that Sydney police are secretly hungering for their own police Lamborghini….
Source | CarAdvice
The Buckeye Battle Cry will be counting down the Top 25 players of the past decade all spring/summer. Every Monday through May and June, Jim will be announcing a new player. Starting in July, we will be announcing new additions on Monday and Thursday. Our #1 player will be presented on Monday, August 30th. Three days later, the 2010 season officially begins.
Clements played for Buffalo from 2001 through 2006 where he established himself as one of the best in the NFL.
Clements is a player that is hurt by the fact that he just barely made it into the decade we are looking at.
Also hurting him are the teams he started on,which had the worst back to back seasons at Ohio State in two decades.
Despite these setbacks, Clements was undoubtedly one of the most talented players to wear the scarlet and gray over the past ten years, and a key player that helped establish Ohio State as a factory for first round cornerbacks.
Clements was named First Team All-Big Ten during his junior year in 2000, after which he declared for the draft. He was drafted 21st overall by the Buffalo Bills in the 2001 NFL draft.
A large part of Clements story over the past decade has been his NFL career. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2004, and in 2007 he signed what was at the time the largest contract ever for a defensive player in the NFL.
For his All-Big Ten season in 2000, his elite level of talent, and for representing Ohio State so well in the NFL for almost a decade, Nate Clements checks in at number twenty-three on our countdown.
by Lou Bendrick
Full Circle’s ultra-pasteurized offering, versus small-farm Blue Hill’s raw milk: Which mooved tasters the most?(Photos by Jason Houston)
Putting aside for a moment
the dietary arguments against drinking cow’s milk—we’re not calves, it’s
liquid meat, it’s snot-producing, so hard to digest, etc.—conventional milk
deserves vilification for many reasons. Conventional dairy’s ethically
repulsive and planet-reaming process involves more or less torturing cows to
lactate year-round; pumping their ailing, grain-fed bodies with hormones and
antibiotics right up until they become hamburger; butchering their anemic
offspring for scallopine and pet food; and, last but not least, polluting our own water
supplies with both their excrement and agricultural runoff. Oh, wait. That
wasn’t last. I forgot to mention that conventional milk is trucked hither and
yon. But don’t take my word for any of this; here’s yet more information on the malevolent
liquid that complements a slice of chocolate cake so nicely.
One way that milk lovers
can sidestep these issues, at least in part, is to buy more sustainable forms
of milk: certified (or in-spirit) organic and/or local. But if taste is the
guide, as is so often is the case, is one of these morally better milks more
delicious than the other? Or are they all just white, taste-neutral beverages?
I assembled a panel of tasters
to sample six greener whole milks. Why whole, full-fat milk? Because I
think it tastes better than low-fat and I’m the decider. That’s why. And before
you ask, Horizon milk—the organic brand owned by Dean Foods that has the
biggest market share by far—is conspicuously absent from this tasting
because it isn’t sold in my local stores and didn’t want to burn tons of fossil
fuel searching for it.
Notes: The more time the cow spends on pasture, the more likely the flavor of the
cow’s milk is to change with the seasons. The milk we tasted last week might,
at least in some cases, taste very different at other times of year. “Ultra
pasteurized” refers to milk that has been heated at higher temperatures for
longer, and has a shelf life of two to three months, and is alas often employed
for organic milk, which is often shipped farther and is more expensive—and thus
slower-selling—than conventional milk.
And now, the results …
Organic
Valley Organic whole milk
Price: $4.99 per half gallon
Eco upside: Organic Valley is a farmer-owned cooperative. For this Massachusetts
panel, that meant we drank a regional milk from New
England pastures, one that’s USDA Certified Organic. Organic Valley says
its cows are “raised humanely and given certified organic feed—never any
animal by-products—and our pastures are certified organic.” On the downside:
Although regional, the milk is still trucked a fair distance and, not having
visited the farms, who the heck knows how happy the cows are? Certified Organic
mandates access to pasture, not actual time spent on it.
Feedback: Tasters
were all over the map on this ultra-pasteurized milk, which was pure white.
Comments ranged from “funky tasting” to “smooth and buttery.” Someone said it
tasted like “raw milk,” with a grassy, moldy flavor. Overall, tasters liked the
texture, which was described as “totally thick” and as having “legs that stick
to the glass.” Overall rating: “Pretty good.”
Jersey dairy cows at High Lawn Farm, in MassachusettsHigh Lawn Farm whole milk
Price: $2.99
per half gallon
Eco upside: This local milk comes from a herd of pretty happy-seeming Jersey cows*
from a charming, medium-sized dairy 12 miles from my house. This milk is not certified
organic but the cows “feed off
fresh grass in the summer months, and almost all of their winter feed comes
straight from our corn and hay fields,” according to High Lawn’s website. The
farm doesn’t use genetically modified seeds, harmful pesticides, or feed with animal
byproducts or artificial hormones. Downside: The website also says that the
farm purchases grains from agribiz villain Cargill to augment the corn and
alfalfa it grows for both silage and hay.
Feedback: Eww.
That’s what got blurted out at first sniff. After sipping, tasters were a
little less sour on this all-white milk, but still deemed it “a little
synthetic and boring.” “Nothing interesting,” said one taster, dismissively
pushing his glass away. “The milk of my childhood,” yawned another.
Full Circle organic whole milk
Price: $3.49 per half gallon
Eco upside: This is my local supermarket chain’s in-store, cost-conscious brand,
which is USDA Organic. Downside: Where did the milk come from? How far was it
shipped? Were these cows really content or merely greenwashed milk machines? I
just don’t know.
Feedback: The
panel got a bit drunk on this white milk, swooning with comments about the
“clover in its nose” and its “earthy, creamy” and “sweet” texture. “I like this
one a lot,” said one, while another said it was akin to drinking “light cream.”
“This one deserves a cookie,” said one lady, who reached for a Newman-O (adding
“I’m gonna get me some palm oil”).
The Organic Cow organic whole milk
Price: $3.79
per half gallon
Eco upside: This USDA Organic regional milk is sourced from “nearly 100 New
England family farms.” Downside: New England is a fairly big region, so who
knows how far the milk was trucked. The Organic Cow website offers, via the Fun
Facts For Kids page, the bovine bit of trivia that a group of 12 or more cows
is called a flink. Shockingly, the site does not offer the requisite meet-the-farmer-via-cheery-photo
montage. However, the carton itself features a profile of a Vermont farmer—who
appears to be a helluva nice guy—taking a relaxed-looking cow for a leisurely
walk. Most important, the cow was wearing a bell. And as you know, you can
never get too much cowbell.
Feedback: Swirling
and sniffing like a wine enthusiast, one taster noted this ultra-pasteurized
milk’s “nice grassy nose.” Its flavor, though, left panelists wanting. “We’re
back to processed flavor,” sighed one man. “Super-homogenized!” said another.
Texture-wise, a kinder taster allowed for “some creaminess,” whereas another
found it to be “mouth-coating.”
Blue Hill Farm’s dairy operation
Blue Hill Farm whole milk
Price: $4 per half gallon (paid in cash at the farm, no records for the gummint to
find)
Eco upside: This local, unpasteurized (aka “raw”) milk comes from a picturesque farm
owned by chef Dan Barber’s Blue Hill restaurant and situated a few miles from
my house. Disclosure: The farmer is a friend of mine. The flink—15 to be
precise—of Dutch and Normande Belted ladies hang out on the rolling green pastures
in the sunshine doing that swishy-tail thing. Downside: There’s a lot of
controversy around the health and safety of raw milk. Advocates say the un-pasteurized stuff
is healthier for cows, people and the earth; the FDA and even many greens say it’s
a health hazard that could cause dangerous foodborne illnesses. Grist’s take is somewhat
in the middle, and the
Ethicurean has a detailed analysis of both the health and illness claims.
Feedback: Unlike
the other “milky” white milks, Blue Hill’s was yellowish, like eggnog with a darker
yellow ring. “Smells like a barn,” said one taster suspiciously. After tasting,
someone hooted, “I love raw milk!”, while another gagged, saying “It tastes
like I’m licking a cow’s ass.” Yet a third closed his eyes, sipped deeply, and
confirmed cognitive dissonance theory: “It’s like silage, but I could acquire
this taste.” The queasy taster, meanwhile, had pushed her chair away from the
table and was eyeing her glass as if it were full of spiders. “I’m not putting
that in my mouth again,” she wailed, to which another taster testily countered,
“This is the only milk my kids will drink.” The wailer then crossed her arms
while one of her “friends” snickered and made lewd milking gestures into her
glass. Taste summary: “Very grassy.”
Stonyfield organic whole milk
Price: $4.49
per gallon
Eco upside: USDA Organic – but Stonyfield is a Big Organic operation, which means
that its impacts, both good and bad, are magnified. The company gives
10 percent of its profits to green efforts. Downside: Stonyfield’s milk may
have been sourced from far away, even abroad, and who knows, despite the warm-and-fuzzy farmer profiles on
its website, the cows could be lined up like cordwood at some huge, insensitive
operation. The site does offer farm webcams, at least one
of which showed cows that were indoors, not frolicking in the sunshine.
Feedback: This milk also earned mixed comments. The raw-milk lovers sipped it with a mix
of Anna Wintour-ish disdain and disaffection: “It’s a basic milk,” someone
sighed. Meanwhile, the raw-milk hater sniffled that it was “pure comfort—happy, cool, and sterile.” Most offered
neutral comments “It makes me think of those little cartons,” and “a lunchroom
milk.”
The bottom line
On taste alone, Full
Circle’s ultra-pasteurized, in-store brand won this tasting, a result that will
surely make the raw milk terroirists irate.
Advice for dairy drinkers: No matter what you do, bag conventional milk. If you
can, find a local dairy farmer you trust and let taste be your guide. And if
you must reach for Big Organic, learn more about your potentially greenwashed
beverage by checking out the Cornocopia Institute’s dairy
report and scorecard. Lastly, consider drinking from the milk of human
kindness and cutting back on animal foodstuffs altogether. But when it comes to
dunking cookies, I think that’s easier said than done.
*Bovine factoid: Jersey
cows’ milk is not only naturally high in butterfat but also, according to
High Lawn’s web authors, the rather smallish cows themselves possess the “most
beautiful, doe-like face of the entire bovine kingdom.”
Related Links:
In Court Case, FDA Takes a Strong Stand Against Unabridged Food and Health Rights
Is raw milk becoming too popular for its own good?
Rhode Island Medical News recently published an April fools article where the author joked about negative hallucinations, where someone didn’t see things that were really there, seemingly unaware that such hallucinations are in fact possible.
The article, which you can read online as a pdf, has various humorous references to jumping traffics lights or ignoring family members. But when I’m talking about the genuine version I don’t mean lapses of attention, blind spots, inattentional blindness or other momentary failure-to-notice effects. I’m talking about not seeing specific barn door obvious objects in your field of vision when you are concentrating on the area.
These are genuinely called negative hallucinations in the scientific literature although, as far as I know, they only occur in one specific context – after hypnosis.
In fact, the induction of a negative hallucination forms part of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (Form C) although these sort of ‘anti-hallucinations’ are only experienced by the most hypnotisable of people – as are most ‘cognitive’ suggestions that effect the experience of your own mind (rather than changes in the sensation of control of movement, which most people can experience something of).
There is a small literature on ‘negative hallucinations’ with several studies examining changes in electrical activity from the brain (‘evoked potentials’) as the hallucination becomes active.
It’s still not clear how negative hallucinations work exactly. Almost all studies have found changes to attention, our ability to selectively process perceptual information, although the data is inconsistent largely owing to the small number of studies – a constant bugbear of hypnosis research.
Link to April fools article PubMed entry.
pdf of full-text
Link to Google Scholar search of negative hallucination studies.
Link to PubMed search of negative hallucination studies.
by Julian Ku
The Jerusalem Post reports on a recent discussion discussion between Alan Dershowitz, Aharon Barak, and Amnon Rubinstein on Israel’s proper attitude toward international law. Each represented a different perspective. Barak (former Israeli Supreme Court chief) suggests that Israel must follow international law as it is, while Rubinstein argued that Israel should engage to make sure international law is interpreted fairly and reasonably against it. And then there is Dershowitz’s position, which is (predictably), the most interesting and extreme position:
Dershowitz charged that Israel was singled out for discrimination by those who interpret international law, whether they are international tribunals like the International Court of Justice, human rights organizations or left-wing academics, including Israeli and Jewish ones.
“The judges in the international tribunes are corrupt,” Dershowitz said. “They are appointed by political leaders to do their state’s bidding. You can’t have one law for Britain, one for America and another one for Israel. You can’t have different laws for thee and me. We see human rights turning into human wrongs or human lefts.
“My job today is to delegitimize international law, to attack it to the core. There must be one standard for all. Until that day happens, I will be its sworn enemy. I prefer no international law to unfair international law.”
Buried beneath Dershowitz’s colorful rhetoric (”sworn enemy”!) is a lot of legitimate criticism of how the laws of armed conflict are applied against Israel. Since the Israeli government has been, in general, pretty sensitive to international law issues, its ultimate attitude toward this kind of international law is pretty important. Interestingly, it is Dershowitz, the non-Israeli, who is recommending the most radical and aggressive position.
Zynga, the social-gaming powerhouse, has been going from strength to strength lately. Things weren’t looking so great for a while, but a long-term partnership with Facebook ensures that its games will continue to be available on the largest social network in the world. With that behind it, it’s time to look at growth again, so… (read more)
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said yesterday he was confused by Graham’s demands for what needs to be done to win his vote on the climate bill.
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s keeps issuing contradictory and cryptic statements on the climate bill (see Graham is incoherent). He is now officially more incoherent and incomprehensible than Rand Paul and the TV series Lost respectively, as E&E News PM (subs. req’d) makes clear:
“I know we need to enhance on- and offshore drilling, to make us more energy independent, but I’m not willing to say let’s go forward boldly now until I find out what happened,” he said.
There are at least a half-dozen investigations under way on the spill. “I just need someone to stop it, tell me what happened, and how we fix it,” Graham said. “I don’t need 500 people to tell me what happened.”
I feel the exact same way about the final episode of Lost!
Graham also said he could vote for a Senate energy and climate bill, but he must see offshore drilling provisions he originally negotiated with Kerry and Lieberman added back into the bill. At issue is language stripped out at the behest of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) that would maintain a 2006 law to keep rigs 125 to 235 miles off Florida’s Gulf coast.
“They took the eastern Gulf provisions and dramatically changed that. I couldn’t live with that,” Graham said.
“I wouldn’t be the 60th vote for the drilling provisions in this bill, but I could be the 60th vote for this concept if it gets back to where it was before,” he added. “But I’m looking for more than 60 votes. You’re either going to get 40 votes or probably 70 votes.”
That position is not only incoherent, but it is incomprehensible and indefensible:
Bingaman also found fault with Graham’s reasoning that the climate bill needs to be put on hold while the Gulf of Mexico oil spill investigations continue. “I think the issue of what we do on climate change, putting a limit on emission on greenhouse gas emissions and a requirement that that be reduced, that can be done without some conclusion about this oil spill in the Gulf,” he said.
“I favor plugging the leak. I favor stopping the spill. But it’s hard to say why the failure to complete the investigation of that spill would be a justification for not limiting greenhouse gas emissions,” Bingaman added. “It seems to me a stretch.”
Certainly it’s not a good omen for the bill, whatever he means. The possibility that Kerry and Lieberman would return to the original language — allowing drilling near the Florida coast — seems as remote as the possibility that anybody is going to approve drilling off the coast of South Carolina for a long, long time.
And to add to Graham’s incoherence/hypocrisy, he supports Lisa “Dirty Air” Murkowski’s radical attempt to overrule science:
“I think it will pass,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “There are a lot of people who will be in the camp of, ‘We should do it, not the EPA.’”
Graham is a co-sponsor of the disapproval resolution from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would effectively halt EPA’s endangerment finding, the basis for its climate rules for cars and industrial facilities. The resolution, which needs 51 votes to pass, is expected on the floor by the week of June 7.
Murkowski’s bid is seen largely as a symbolic one given the resolution’s long-shot prospects in the House, as well as an expected veto from President Obama. Still, her effort is considered a critical early proxy for the Senate as Democratic leaders weigh whether they have the votes to pass a more comprehensive climate bill.
So far, Murkowski has 41 supporters, including three Democrats: Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Graham said he thinks a majority of senators will ultimately vote for the resolution, though he predicted most would do so with the understanding that a broader bill must pass too that combines climate and energy issues in a manner different from the House-passed climate measure.
“Some people will say carbon shouldn’t be regulated at all, I think that’s the minority view,” Graham said. “I think the majority of the body will say that Congress should set the carbon regulations, not the EPA, which gets us back to … when Congress is going to do it and how we’re going to do it. I believe that you’ll never regulate carbon without having energy independence, without a more business-friendly framework than Waxman-Markey. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.”
Clears things up, no?
Related Posts:
Clifton Taulbert wrote:
Fifty-five years ago, as a young boy growing up on the Mississippi Delta, I had never heard of Paris, France, but I knew all about Detroit, MI. My adult cousins, Melvin, Earl, and Mildred lived there. Detroit was their city of dreams and became, for us, a place of great possibilities.
Detroit did not come about due to magic and luck, but over time innovation, collaboration, and hard work made it one of the top five cities in America. Detroit, this historic, grand city, seeks once again to ignite the imagination of young minds as a place of great possibilities. I firmly believe that entrepreneurs and innovators will play a big role in creating a new Detroit with great possibilities.
How can 21st century entrepreneurs and innovators combine their talents and dreams to once again assemble innovation, collaboration, and hard work to reinvigorate Detroit and its economy?
1. Focus on the Pre-K-12 Education Corridor as Detroit’s Bottom Line
Infuse and ignite their learning process with entrepreneurial mindset lessons—the same lessons that sparked the innovative success that branded Detroit for more than 100 years. Detroit’s youth are coming of age at the right time to think differently and creatively about providing value to others and for themselves.
2. Redefine and Expand the Concept of Citizen-Ownership
Entrepreneurs become successful in part due to their sense of ownership—their right to originate, participate, and innovate. They tend to have more answers than questions. They recognize and value their unique gifts as necessary and meaningful. We need this group to market this mindset to the ordinary citizens of Detroit so that they can think of themselves as the next innovative Henry Ford. Why not?
3. Reclaim Detroit’s Work Ethic for Future Possibilities
Solutions are usually on the other side of problems. There are no solutions without people. This is the reality that drives the entrepreneur. People make things happen! Marshal the tools of the entrepreneur media to remind the citizens of Detroit of their historic strength and their present capacity. Challenge the chamber of commerce to market nationally—broadly and boldly—the people, their skills, and their abundant real estate for their future.
4. Foster Connectivity among the Independent Silos of Excellence (ISEs)
The entrepreneurial mindset of innovation and inclusivity has the capacity to connect the past to the future and to create the new foundation needed for building a new Detroit. Detroit’s reinvigoration will come about when all the great neighborhoods (ISEs) connect and embrace a new vision—one that is unselfishly crafted and future focused.
5. De-mystify Technology- It’s the 21st Century’s ‘open door’ to Future Possibilities
The chip has changed the world and will continue to do so. The entrepreneur and the innovator are well aware of this fact, but not necessarily the ordinary citizen. At the level of the ordinary citizen is the human potential needed to tap into possibilities heretofore not known. Detroit is about tomorrow and so is technology.
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
Font maker Bitstream today released the next version of its Bolt mobile browser. Version 2.1 add tight integration with Facebook and support for HTML5 video. The Bolt browser uses Bitstream’s server-side rendering of web pages making it a full Webkit-based browser for feature phones. There are Java and BREW versions of the browser making it compatible with most feature phones on the market. Bolt is also available for the BlackBerry, and can be configured as the default web browser.
The new Facebook integration in Bolt 2.1 allows users of the browser to work with Facebook instant messaging and to paste links directly to Facebook accounts. The HTML5 video support is in recognition of the growing number of web sites that provide videos in the new format. Bolt 2.1 is also compatible with more sites using streaming Flash video.
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): To Win In the Mobile Market, Focus On Consumers
Google’s playable Pac-man logo surely cost the worldwide economy millions of man-hours last week. It was originally only supposed to up for only two day. That’s changed. It will now reside forever at Google.com/Pacman. We heart Google.
Late Late Night FDL: Carnac The Magnificent
Johnny Carson as Carnac The Magnificent, featuring Ed McMahon. This skit aired on The Tonight Show in February, 1981.
Johnny Carson as Carnac The Magnificent, featuring Ed McMahon. This skit aired on The Tonight Show in February, 1981.
What’s on your mind?
The Spirit of ‘86
I was in college in the Spring of 1986 when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had its meltdown. Without Twitter, Blogs or Facebook we actually had to sit around and hyperventilate with each other face-to-face, it was terrible. One thing we did have is Reagan Administration officials on television telling us that non-commie […]
Chernobyl Sarcophagus (photo: via stahlmandesign at Flickr)
I was in college in the Spring of 1986 when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had its meltdown. Without Twitter, Blogs or Facebook we actually had to sit around and hyperventilate with each other face-to-face, it was terrible.
One thing we did have is Reagan Administration officials on television telling us that non-commie nuclear reactors were perfectly safe and we need to build more– “why look at France” they said, “the French nuclear reactors are wonderful!” Republicans praising France, it was a different time. But still, no new nuclear plants were getting built.
Move forward a quarter-century and without the Soviets to kick around these ecological disasters just cannot be spun so easily, so things go in reverse.
In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.
That’s quite a re-imagining of the definition of moratorium — and speaking of moratoriums.
Meanwhile, the oil geyser gets worse. Maybe we should bring in those Russian folks who fixed the problems at Chernobyl? Oh…right.
Via Prison Planet.com » World News
James P. Tucker, Jr.
American Free Press
Monday, May 24th, 2010
As the super-secret Trilateral Commission (TC) was meeting behind locked and guarded doors at the luxurious Four Seasons resort hotel in Dublin, Ireland May 8, participants were upset to learn that awareness of their evildoings was surging in the United States.
The same day, the Republican Party of Maine threw out its Establishment-approved platform and adopted a manifesto that denounced “efforts to create a one-world government,” called for abolishing the Federal Reserve
System and ridiculed global warming as a “myth.” Each of these matters is dear to the hearts of members of the Trilateral Commission and its brother group, Bilderberg. Their traditional goal is world government, and these stateless plutocrats have exploited the hysteria over “global warming” for profit.
Maine’s Republicans also praised the tea party movement and support Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and his son Rand Paul, who won the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky May 18. Maine’s Republicans said, “Healthcare is not a right.” They say, “Eliminate Motor Voter”; “Reject the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child”; “Eliminate the Department of Education”; “Arrest and detain . . . anyone here illegally, and then deport [him], period.”
Similar demands are being made by a growing number of congressmen and other officials throughout the country, and this is distressing to the Trilateral-Bilderberg elite. The health control law proclaims a “right” to care and imposes an unconstitutional requirement that private citizens buy private healthcare or pay a fine. Yet the central government has no constitutional power to compel individuals to buy any product from a private party.
“Motor Voter” was imposed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 to register illegal aliens, mostly Hispanic, so they could illegally vote for him. The illegal immigrant would apply for a drivers license and be automatically registered to vote at the same time. Many were unaware they could vote until jerked off their porches on Election Day and shoved into a voting booth with a filled-out sample ballot in their fist.
Patriots, once educated on the issue, strongly oppose the UN’s “child’s rights” treaty. No, they don’t hate children, as the internationalists shout. This treaty would allow UN bureaucrats to enter your home and bully you if your child (or a neighbor’s child) complains. It is another attack on the family and national sovereignty by advocates of world government.
Former President Jimmy Carter, who was recruited into the Trilateral Commission as governor of Georgia by David Rockefeller, made the Department of Education a separate Cabinet-level entity in a payoff to the teachers union. Predictably, education went south as incompetent applicants got new teaching jobs. It is a goal of the internationalists to dumb down America, so living standards throughout the world will be equalized— equalized for us peons, not the plutocratic elite.
Federal law passed in 1952 requires that the border be sealed off and illegal immigrants thrown out. But internationalists consider themselves above the law and, of course, illegal immigrants reduce the U.S. standard of living. They also make great wage slaves to be abused by multinational corporations for the profits of top executives, many of whom are members of the TC and other globalist groups.
——
NOTE: Bilderberg will meet June 4-7 at the Dolce Hotel in Sitges, Spain, 12 miles from Barcelona.
U.S. Base Will Stay on Okinawa
Despite campaign promises and widespread protests, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has finally made the widely unpopular decision to allow the relocation of a U.S. military base on Okinawa. Hatoyama had been on the fence for months on how to resolve the issue, with his approval rating plunging to less than 25 percent. —JCL The New York Times: Apologizing for failing to fulfill a prominent campaign promise, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States. On his second visit to Okinawa this month, Mr. Hatoyama for first time conceded what Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands and honor a 2006 agreement to move the United States Marine Air Station Futenma to the island’s less populated north. The decision is a humiliating setback for Mr. Hatoyama on a problem that has consumed his young government and could prove its undoing. Before last year’s historic election victory, he had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. But his apparent wavering on the issue helped drive his approval ratings below 25 percent. Read more
Despite campaign promises and widespread protests, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has finally made the widely unpopular decision to allow the relocation of a U.S. military base on Okinawa.
Hatoyama had been on the fence for months on how to resolve the issue, with his approval rating plunging to less than 25 percent. —JCL
The New York Times:
Apologizing for failing to fulfill a prominent campaign promise, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States.
On his second visit to Okinawa this month, Mr. Hatoyama for first time conceded what Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands and honor a 2006 agreement to move the United States Marine Air Station Futenma to the island’s less populated north.
The decision is a humiliating setback for Mr. Hatoyama on a problem that has consumed his young government and could prove its undoing. Before last year’s historic election victory, he had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. But his apparent wavering on the issue helped drive his approval ratings below 25 percent.
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